Scott Wykoff's Blog

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Big Brother?

It was the first day Maryland's first fully electronic toll road was opened.

This blogger decided to take a ride along new the Inner County Connector. Why not? For the first 10 days or so the ICC was toll-free. Governor O'Malley called it a "test drive period" to give drivers a chance to become familiar with the road.

But that doesn't mean those hi-tech overhead cameras weren't snapping photos of each and every vehicle's license plate that passed underneath them. I found that out when I received this letter in the mail from E-ZPass Maryland.

For more than a week the cameras along Maryland's new Route 200 were keeping track of each and every vehicle that was becoming familiar with the all electronic toll road.

Here's exactly what Governor O'Malley said as the ICC opened with it's toll grace period:

"The test-drive period will give motorists an opportunity to become familiar with the highway's all-electronic tolling and variable pricing, while allowing us to test the tolling equipment under actual traffic conditions."

No mention of also using it as an E-ZPass marketing tool.

The state developed a database of potential E-ZPass customers during that free trial period with an average of about 30,000 vehicles a day travelling the ICC when it was free.

Jump ahead to the day about 10 days later when tolls when into effect on the ICC on March 7th. The first day of electronic toll collections saw about 8,000 vehicles travel. Some 22,000 less vehicles that travelled the ICC, on average a day, when it was free.

After seeing my video (above) shot along the ICC when it opened, some folks have asked me if the Maryland Transportation Authority Police (who patrol the ICC) will start using the overhead cameras on the toll road to start timing how long it takes vehicles to travel the ICC. Someone asked me if the cameras one day would be used for all intents-and-purposes as speed cameras.

The letter from the E-ZPass Maryland Service Center recorded (down the hundredth of a second) the times I passed underneath those electronic tolling structures along the ICC.

"Couldn't they use those cameras to see how long it takes each vehicle to travel between the electronic tolling structures on the ICC and gauge each vehicle's speed and then send speeding out tickets in the mail accordingly?"

Good question.

We'll have to get my fellow blogger Robert Lang, WBAL's man on-the-scene during the legislative session in Annapolis, on it.